By Forum Staff
Mayor Eric Adams Monday night said he was “disappointed” after the Rent Guidelines Board took a final vote for rent-stabilized lease adjustments of 3 percent for one-year leases and 4.5 percent for two-year leases.
Hizzoner called rent “another massive cost for New Yorkers” and said that the “city’s historically low rental vacancy has millions of us feeling the squeeze, which is why, earlier today, I urged the Rent Guidelines Board to adopt the lowest increase possible, as I’ve done in the past. While the board exercised their independent judgment, and made an adjustment based on elements such as inflation, I am disappointed that they approved increases higher than what I called for.”
Photo Courtesy of Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office
“We know that the city’s housing crisis cannot be solved by the Rent Guidelines Board alone,” Mayor Adams said.
The mayor later noted that “rent may be on the rise, but so are deteriorating housing conditions — including inadequate heat and heating breakdowns, mice and rat problems, mold, and leaks — especially for New Yorkers in rent-stabilized housing. Demands to ‘freeze the rent’ would exacerbate these harmful health and safety issues inside the homes of more than 1 million New Yorkers by depriving owners of the resources needed to make repairs — a cruel and dangerous proposal. While freezing the rent may sound like a catchy slogan, it is bad policy, short-sighted, and only puts tenants in harm’s way.
“We know that the city’s housing crisis cannot be solved by the Rent Guidelines Board alone,” Adams added. “Doing so will require preserving our existing housing stock and building an abundance of new housing across our city.”
